First Impressions
by Aearwen22
Summary: Sometimes first impressions are incorrect, but it takes work to overcome them. Written as part of a Christmas Fic Exchange at the Garden of Ithilien for Vilwarin. Happy Holidays!


"This is all your fault, you know." Aragorn found the stunned outrage with which Halbarad stared back at him from halfway down the slope immensely satisfying, considering everything.

"How, in the name of sweet Elbereth, do you figure _that_ one, cousin?" Halbarad demanded in return and then groaned and lifted his foot away from where it had landed as he fell down the slope. "Son of a nazgûl! That hurts!"

"Oh come on now," Aragorn taunted him with a hand at his hip. He'd seen these kinds of tactics before - had fallen for them from his brothers often enough - that he wasn't going to fall for them from this... Mortal. If Halbarad thought he could lure him into thinking he was injured only to surprise him, well! He'd just have to discover his cousin wasn't quite so green around the ears after all. "Quit laying around and get back up here, will you? We need to get going or we won't arrive at the camp within the time set. We're late enough already as it is, thanks to you..."

Halbarad struggled to get back to his feet, but then cried out sharply and fell back to the ground. "OW! My ankle!"

"Do you honestly think me gullible enough to fall for..."

"I can't walk on it, blast you to Mordor!" Halbarad's voice was shrill.

Aragorn blinked. There was a almost panicked tone to his cousin's voice that made him start to believe that perhaps the injury actually was real and not feigned. "Your ankle?" The glow of satisfaction he had felt just moments earlier was starting to fade rather quickly. He may have been angry at the deception played upon him, but not enough to have wanted to do his cousin serious injury; not out this far in the wild.

"You mincing Elf pretendling! If I could walk right now, I'd be planting this foot so far up your bu..."

"All right! All right!" Aragorn carefully descended the last few slippery paces to where his cousin had come to rest after their tussle. "Come on, Orodruin, quit spewing fire and ash and let me see..."

"I'm not letting you touch me!" Halbarad snarled. "This is your fault, not mine."

"You started it," Aragorn snapped back. "Take your own boot off yourself then. Let's see what's going on."

Halbarad grunted as he bent toward the foot and tried to tug the boot off, only to fall back with another sharp cry.

"Let me then," Aragorn crouched down next to his cousin. Aragorn took careful hold of the boot and could feel how the foot within was already swelling. "Hang on, this is probably going to hurt..."

"It already hurts! OW!" Grey eyes glared at him despite the pain behind them. Aragorn gave a rueful smile as he shook his head to clear the echo of the loud bellow of pain that had accompanied the boot removal. He reached for the foot again after setting the now-empty boot aside, only to have Halbarad drew his foot away from Aragorn's hand with a grimace. "I don't know if I trust you now."

"You're a fine one to be arguing about trust," Aragorn glared back at the young Dúnadan he'd been told was one of his closest relatives. "Besides, I trained as a healer with Master Elrond himself. Do you know of anyone more qualified in the vicinity?" He cast his arm around and glared out over the rock-strewn and barren landscape. "I would be glad to step aside. Just point me in the direction of the proper path, and I'll leave you to their tender mercies."

_Fire and Shadows! _Halbarad glanced around himself and glowered at his swollen ankle. "Very well - just don't do anything... painful."

"I have to take off the sock to examine you."

"Then do it carefully," he retorted. "I am still dizzy from your taking off my boot."

"Would you have rather I cut the boot off?" Aragorn snapped, his hands still gentle as they folded back the knit sock and eased it away.

"I'm surprised you didn't." Halbarad snarled back.

The ankle did look bad - already swollen to twice its size. Aragorn wondered if he still had that small packet of willow bark in his healer's pouch. He hadn't had time to check it or restock in the short times between exercises lately. "I know better than that, cousin, just as you should have known better than to lead us all the way out _here_..."

Halbarad blinked in surprise and then looked away in consternation and... was it shame?

"I thought so," Aragorn continued in disgust. "Were you trying to get us both tossed from the training, or just get us lost?"

"No, just you," Halbarad snapped this time. "I thought to lose you in these rocks and then double back to the path and make it in before the time limit." The combination of respect and disdain in his gaze was palpable. "You're a better tracker than I thought you'd be, I have to admit. But you'd think you'd have known better than to tackle me on an icy slope."

"And I would have thought you'd have known better to try to summersault your way back to your feet on such uncertain and icy ground," Aragorn shook his head. "You're lucky all you did was slip and land your ankle hard against that rock - you could have split your head open." His fingers prodded at the swollen ankle very carefully. "Congratulations, cousin. It's broken." He pulled the sock back up onto the foot.

Halbarad leaned back hard against the boulder at his back. "Wonderful!" He cast an eye skyward. "And it's getting dark too. Can this get any better?" Aragorn rose to his feet and moved away. "Hey! Are you just going to leave me here like this?"

"I should," Aragorn called back angrily, then stayed silent just long enough to hopefully give his "cousin" something else to worry about. "Relax," he added eventually in a sullen tone, "we need wood for a fire. It's going to be cold tonight."

There weren't many trees in the area, but at the bottom of the slope was a swift-running stream with several trees on the banks that looked to have a fair supply of fallen limbs to offer. Aragorn quickly gathered as much as he could safely carry and hastened back up the slope, following his own tracks to where Halbarad sat waiting for him. During his absence, his cousin had at least dug a shallow fire pit and rimmed it with small rocks.

"You get the fire going, I'll fetch water," Aragorn directed, dumping his load at Halbarad's side and heading to rifle through his backpack for the cooking pot.

"Who died and made you my superior?" Halbarad grumbled, already reaching for the smaller twigs to break up into kindling.

Aragorn sighed and turned. "Very well. I'll make the fire, and _you_ go fetch the water." He raised his eyebrows at Halbarad's expression. "No? Then don't ask stupid questions." He trudged back down the slope. This was a bad place to be in their situation. There was no cover for protection from the elements, and both the landscape and the level of danger a virtual unknown. Halbarad had misled them once already - did he dare trust any more information his cousin would give him now?

He dipped the cooking pot in the clear, cold water. He'd hoped that finding a cousin - an actual blood relative - at the same point in the training would mean that he had found someone he could relate to in this strange, new place. But no, Halbarad had taken an immediate dislike to him, it seemed. He tried to talk to him, to find out more about growing up Dúnadan, only to be brushed off like a nuisance. Worse, forced to bunk with Halbarad and one of his life-long friends, he had been the butt of teasing every time his Elven ways conflicted with their traditions.

Straightening, he cast an eye about him, gauging the weather. It would be clear and bitterly cold tonight, but at least the crystal clear sky above meant that it would not snow on them hopefully before he had formulated some plan on how to get them both back to civilization safely. He once more began trudging back up the slope, careful not to let any of the water slosh from his pot.

_Approach every situation as an opportunity rather than a problem or burden,_ he remembered Glorfindel's advice the first time he'd been permitted to ride the borders of Imladris with his brothers. _A good leader always identifies the problems first, and then sets about solving them by order of importance,_ had been Erestor's teachings, especially dealing with military campaigns of the Second Age. Aragorn was _not_ going to toss aside all that his Elven teachers had pounded into his head. All he had to do was figure out how to use the advice in his current dilemma.

The problems were obvious: Halbarad had a broken ankle, which would mean that traveling would happen very slowly, and the possibility of getting caught out in far less clement weather was greatly increased. The general lack of trees and rugged terrain meant that the likelihood of finding shelter in the event of inclement weather wasn't all that great. Added to that was the fact that Halbarad seemed to resent his very existence. The list of "opportunities" appeared daunting.

A quick movement drew his attention, and a rabbit ducked out of sight behind a boulder. Wildlife did live here - which meant that there might be some minimal hunting possible to keep them fed. And some of the wood he'd gathered might serve to construct a splint of sorts - and maybe a crutch - he'd have to see, and hope that Halbarad hadn't already broken up the most serviceable length while he'd been gone.

"Took you long enough." Halbarad growled. At least he'd managed to get a small but healthy fire going.

Aragorn squatted next to the fire and stirred it so that placing the cooking pot directly on the burning branches wouldn't extinguish the flames. "The stream is all the way at the bottom, if you recall," he grumbled back. "You should know this, if you know the area so well." The pot on the flames, he turned to rifle through his backpack again for his healer's pouch. "Your pack has the mugs, right?" he tossed out.

Halbarad didn't answer, but pulled his pack close and threw open the flap. "No time to hunt," he observed caustically, and pulled out the small bag with the dried meat and hard tack. "This isn't going to last very long."

"There are rabbits," Aragorn informed him. "I saw one on the way back. We won't starve." He tucked the healer's pouch into his belt and rose to walk over to the pile of branches that remained of his gathering. He began sorting through them with an eye for either splints or a crutch. "I'll need to wrap your ankle before we try to go anywhere, though. I don't know about you, but spending six weeks out here waiting for you to heal doesn't sound all that inviting."

"Six weeks!" Halbarad stared at him. "You're joking, aren't you?"

"Not at all," Aragorn shook his head. "In my Fa... In Master Elrond's house, broken bones are given no less than six weeks to heal before they can be put back into use again."

"But how..." Halbarad stared around him and swallowed hard. "We can't stay here."

"I know," Aragorn answered tiredly. "That's why I'm also looking for something you can use as a crutch. Between that and leaning on me, we'll be able to make some fair distance over the course of a day."

"It's going to take forever to get back to camp."

Aragorn gave his cousin a brusque nod. "Aye. But the alternative is not practical." He lifted the longest branch he could find and tested its sturdiness. "Nor preferable," he added. He finally gave Halbarad a direct and penetrating look. "You _do_ know the way, do you not?"

Halbarad nodded and finally looked away. "I do." He picked up a twig and poked at the fire for a while and then sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Aragorn."

Aragorn gazed at him for a long and silent moment, and then he heaved a heavy sigh of his own and came over to squat next to his cousin and poke into the fire with another length of twig. "I too wronged you, and I am sorry for it." He turned and looked over his shoulder. "This is ridiculous. We should not be fighting with each other; there are so many other evils in the world that deserve the effort much more."

"I know." Halbarad tossed the stick into the fire pit so that it would add to the flames heating the cooking pot. "It's just..."

"What?" Aragorn tossed aside his twig and twisted on his haunches to look at his cousin. "What did I do? Why are you always angry with me?"

"Because you came..." Halbarad stared at his cousin and then dropped his gaze to watch himself pick an invisible something from his trouser leg. "Because you came in with those Elves, looking and acting like you knew so very much more than the rest of us, and yet you looked like a... I mean, your beard hadn't even grown in properly..."

"What does my beard have to do with anything?" Aragorn asked in amazement.

Halbarad shrugged. "It was just part of the whole idea that... Here you were, claiming to be Uncle Arathorn's long-lost son, looking like you were but half-grown and still under a mother's care. Your hair was clean, your clothes as if they'd never seen a stain or dirt..."

"Are the Dúnedain taught to judge a man's character from his appearance?" Aragorn gaped.

"No," Halbarad allowed, "not normally, at any rate. I just..." He sighed, and then looked up to glare. "I didn't like you just stepping into the camp and thinking you could take over control of our entire people from Father just like that."

"I didn't expect to do that," Aragorn stated softly and firmly. "If I did, do you honestly think I would have put myself into a training camp with other Dúnedain our age? I expect I have a lot to learn - both about leading and about being Dúnedain. I know nothing about what it means to be one of _Us_ other than what my bro... foster brothers could tell me."

"But you grew up, knowing you were born to lead us," Halbarad complained.

"No, I didn't," Aragorn shook his head firmly. "I was raised as Master Elrond's foster son; and I knew I was of Dúnedain heritage, but nothing more than that. I grew up thinking I'd spend my life in service to Imladris! I found out how wrong I was only one month before I was brought to the training camp."

It was Halbarad's turn to gape. "You mean, all those questions... You really didn't mean to sound stupid?"

Again Aragorn shook his head. "No, I really wanted to know those things. They were things my foster brothers could not tell me - things only the Dúnedain would know or care about." He turned to gaze at Halbarad. "You really thought I came into the camp to play Dark Lord and take control of our people right away?"

Halbarad returned his gaze evenly. "I... we... didn't know quite what to think. You were supposed to be dead."

Aragorn shrugged and reached for his glove to take the now boiling cooking pot from the flames. "That was Master Elrond's intent: convince the Dark Lord that the line of Isildur's heirs was broken, so that he would stop hunting me. But to do it properly, even I couldn't know. I was given another name - I didn't even answer to Aragorn until a little over a month ago. Even my own mother still slipped and called me by my Elvish name before I left." He gathered the two mugs together in front of him and pulled out his healer's pouch.

"What did you do in Imladris?" Halbarad asked softly. When Aragorn looked up at him in surprise, he threw out a hand. "I've heard the stories, and I always wondered what it was like there."

"I grew up - my brothers and Glorfindel taught me the sword, knives, bow, tracking and woodcraft. My Fa... foster father taught me healing. Elrond's chief counselor taught me history and literature and languages." He pulled out a small wrapped packet and crumbled a little bit of it into one mug and then carefully tucked the packet away. "And when I was old enough, they said, I began to ride with my brothers... my foster brothers... when they would patrol the borders of Ada's realm."

"And you fought? That wasn't just a big story to make you sound important?"

Aragorn reached for the bundle of dried meat and hard tack. At the bottom was another small bundle of wrapped, dried leaves, and he added a careful amount to both mugs. "I've killed orc and warg, yes," he replied softly. He poured boiling water into both mugs and held out Halbarad's. "Yours isn't going to taste very good; I added willow bark to yours to help with the pain."

"At least it's hot." Halbarad accepted the mug and sniffed at it, wrinkling his nose but taking a cautious sip nonetheless.

"What about you?" Aragorn put his mug down and dug in the bag for two relatively equal-sized lengths of dried meat, letting Halbarad choose his, and then handed over a helping of hard tack. "I've seen you - you're good with a sword. Tell me about growing up Dúnedain."

Halbarad lifted the hard tack and glared at it. "This is going to taste really awful, soaked in that swill you want me to drink."

Aragorn shrugged. "What can I say, it's medicine and you need it. Now, about growing up..."

"Well, I learned sword from my father, but it was my uncle who taught me tracking and woodcraft..."

oOoOo

"You two were scheduled to arrive five days ago. What do you have to say for yourselves?" Captain Iorthon looked from one grimy, tired, worn face to the other.

Aragorn and Halbarad looked at each other very quickly and then turned back to their trainer. "It's my fault," Aragorn said quickly, getting his mouth open before Halbarad could say anything. "I missed one of the markers on the trail and ended up leading us in a circle that cost us a day at least, wouldn't you say?" He turned to his cousin.

"And it didn't help that I slipped on that patch of ice and landed on my foot," Halbarad nodded soberly. "Aragorn wouldn't let me move until he had it wrapped and splinted, and a crutch found..."

Iorthon's eye narrowed. Ivoreth had been called to look over the broken ankle and declared that it had already received very adequate care; all Halbarad had to do was stay off of it for the next five weeks, and then gradually ease back into full activity. But there was something else going on here...

"You two are getting along a whole lot better than you were before too, where neither of you could speak a civil word to the other before you left. Anything you want to tell me? Anything that I'd find out about later anyway that you want to get off your chest?"

Aragorn shook his head. "Honestly, Captain, it was an unfortunate series of mistakes that happened. They could have happened to anyone."

"As for getting along better, we got to know each other better while we were out there," Halbarad announced firmly. "We didn't have anybody else to talk to, after all. I found out I'd misjudged him..."

"And I found out he wasn't the monster I thought he was..." Aragorn added willingly.

His gut told him that the two young men weren't telling him the whole story by a half; but by backing each other up the way they were, there was no way he'd get the truth out of either of them. Their story was too neat - too practiced - not to distrust. But the fact remained that they had weathered a serious injury and a snowstorm and still managed to limp into camp alive and relatively sound of body and spirit. Whatever happened between them, it had done some good - and proven that they had great potential as Rangers. In that respect, at least, the training exercise had been a success.

"Go on with you, then," he growled at Aragorn. "There's hot food in the mess hut. I'll have a new assignment for you in a day or so. As for you," he turned to Halbarad, "you're stuck here in the healer's hut for the next few weeks. Enjoy your vacation." For some reason, the sour look on the young man's face was satisfying.

He very deliberately didn't pay attention when the two young men clapped their fists together in a triumphant mutual salute and smiled very openly at each other. Halbeleg had written to tell him that the two cousins could possibly be good friends, _if_ they could just get past the first impressions.

He was pretty certain that wasn't going to be a problem anymore.

FIN


End file.
